The Girl In White

by Shannon Reber

  Ian turned his head to look at the guy. “We saw CJ hanging from a tree in the trail. You want to know more? You want to know how his face was the same color as the plum soda Maddie always loved? You want to know how everything went from warm to cold in half a second? You want to know how it sounded when Maddie screamed, how I saw for the thousandth time that I failed my family and Maddie? You want—”

  I reached over to cover his lips with my fingers, shaking my head as he turned his eyes on me. “You didn’t fail anybody, Ian. None of this was ever your fault.”

  “None of what?” Erkens asked, his pose relaxed but his body had tilted closer to us like a dog on alert.

  Ian turned his head so my hand fell away. “For two years, my family and I have believed my sister killed herself.” His shoulders were so tense, he looked like a statue. “I ignored her when she texted me to come and pick her up. Now, two guys have died in the last week. They were two guys I knew and I don’t think they killed themselves any more than Emma did. That means if I’d gone to pick up my sister when she’d asked she would be alive today. Somebody killed all three of them and that’s on my head.”

  Tears rose in my eyes and slowly began to cascade down my cheeks. “That’s not true, Ian,” I sniffled, horrified as much by the idea of him blaming himself as by the idea those three deaths were indeed murder.

  He hunched his shoulders and looked at the ground in front of him. “I’m so sorry, Maddie,” he said to his shoes.

  Erkens let out a huff of air. “Kid, life is a three-ring circus. Death is worse. Taking the blame for someone’s death only lessens it for the one who caused that death in the first place,” he said sagely and went on before Ian could respond. “If you know something, or have seen something which can help me figure out what happened, I need to know about it.”

  Ian’s eyes stayed fixed on his shoes as he gave a slow nod. “I saw my sister,” he breathed, his hands clenched into tight fists.

  “Where?” Erkens asked, not in a disbelieving tone at all.

  “On the trail in front of CJ.”

  Erkens swore and shifted around to rise. “You two need to back off. Let me handle this and do NOT go looking for trouble,” he ordered and walked into the woods without a backward glance.

  I stared after him, even more confused than I was before. It was so annoying to be told by some old guy that we weren’t capable of handling whatever was going on around us. He didn’t know us. Ian and I were both far stronger than he gave us credit for.

  As though to prove me wrong, a figure stepped through the crowd. My dad’s eyes met mine and all of a sudden, tears began to stream down my cheeks. Strong or not, I had reached my limit of what I could handle on one birthday.

  I jumped up and dove at him, wrapping my arms around his waist. I hadn’t hugged my dad in years. As soon as I did, it was like half the anxiety fell off my shoulders.

  Dad pulled me back after a moment, his eyes probing me in a clinical way. “Are you okay?” he asked like he thought I had been hurt or something.

  I shook my head and wiped at my tears. “No, I’m not. What are you doing here, Dad?” I asked, my voice choked from all those tears.

  “Ian called me,” he said and wrapped his arm around my shoulders as he guided me over to where Ian still sat. “Come on. You two can come home with me for tonight,” he said, his voice clipped as he scanned the area around us.

  Ian didn’t move, his eyes still fixed on the ground. “It’s okay. I’ll—”

  “It wasn’t a request, Ian,” Dad said in the kind of professorial tone that was almost like a drill sergeant. “Let’s go.”

  Ian still didn’t look up, yet he did rise. He followed along as Dad guided us to his car.

  A cop stopped him as Dad closed the door behind me, so he was forced to talk to the guy for a few seconds. I was okay with that. I didn’t want to have to answer Dad’s questions right then.

  What I wanted was to get out of the car and go to the woods. Emma was still around. She was trying to communicate with me but wasn’t able to somehow.

  Could there be a way for me to make things easier for her? Was it possible for me to . . . open my mind or something? I wasn’t sure what I believed in regards to an afterlife. Shouldn’t she have gone on, though?

  “Promise me that whatever you’re planning, you’ll let me be in on it,” Ian said in a voice that sounded choked like he had to speak around a lump in his throat.

  I glanced at him, seeing despair in his eyes. I extended my hand toward him, my little finger extended. There was no need for words. Right then, Ian and I were on the same page.

  TWELVE

  It surprised me as Dad pulled into his driveway, to find that his house was only a few miles from my own. I hadn’t realized when he’d said he lived close that he lived quite THAT close to me. It made me wonder what other similarities there were between my life and his.

  The house was large, in a charming Victorian-style that looked like it had been made into a duplex or triplex. Something about that place made me feel at home immediately. Warmth spread its way through my chest as Dad guided us up to an ornate door and unlocked it to let us in.

  It was not at all what I had expected. My dad had been single since he and mom had divorced almost eighteen years ago. I had expected his house to be either Spartan or cluttered by books and papers.

  What I saw instead were well-chosen antiques that complimented every feature the house possessed. It wasn’t stuffy because of the antiques, though. It was warm and welcoming, again the last thing I had expected.

  Dad motioned for Ian and I to sit on his couch as he went to light a fire. It was a sweet, comfortable thing which made me feel far more at home than I had in a long time.

  I drew my knees up and wrapped my arms around my legs, trying to hold in even the slightest amount of warmth. It didn’t work. I continued to shiver.

  Dad rose and walked out of the room without speaking, apparently on a mission. I didn’t ask. I was too mesmerized by the dancing of flames in the fireplace.

  Dancing with Ian a few hours before had been so much fun. I wished we had stayed with everybody else. I wished we had never gone out into the woods at all.

  What had been the point of that? Ian did know how much I’d always loved the trees. Had it been another gift to me or had there been some other reason? Why had he started being so nice to me?

  I glanced at him, seeing that he sat sprawled out with his elbow on the arm of the couch, his brow rested on his hand. He looked . . . broken. It was like the stress of everything that had happened in the last week had been too much for him.

  After a few minutes, Dad walked into the living room holding three steaming mugs. He handed one to each of us before taking a blanket off the back of another chair and draping it over my shoulders. When that was done, he sat in a chair facing us.

  “Talk to me,” he said like it was that simple.

  I pulled the blanket more tightly around me and sipped at my mug, pleased by the sweet flavor of spiced cider. The heat of it helped to drive away a tiny bit of the chill. More soothing still, was the fact it was one of my favorite drinks. Looked like that was something else Dad and I had in common.

  I huddled into a tighter ball and curled myself around the heat of the cider. “They didn’t kill themselves and neither did Emma. Somebody killed them,” I stated without any hesitation at all.

  Dad leaned back in his seat, his mug rested on the arm of the chair. “And you’re basing this on the fact Emma appeared to you to show you the story about Manuel?”

  I scowled at him, annoyed by the tone he’d used. “Yes, Dad. I am basing my opinion on that. I’m also basing it on the fact that Emma was on the trail when Ian and I found that kid’s body. Somebody murdered them. Why can’t anybody see that?” I growled, almost mad enough to walk out completely, never to return.

  “I felt her,” Ian said quietly, his eyes still down like he was afraid to look at either of us. “In class the other day
, that cold feeling hit me. I was so busy trying to convince myself it wasn’t happening . . . what if she needed me again and I ignored her?”

  Dad shook his head. “We have no idea why this is happening. You can’t make assumptions,” he said in a reasonable tone, one that spoke volumes.

  Dad didn’t believe us. That was clear as day. Why he’d pretend to, I had no idea.

  I sipped at the cider again, my eyes still fixed on the fire. “We need to figure out what really happened to Emma, not sit around blaming ourselves for it,” I said decisively, unwilling to deal with anything else at all.

  Ian didn’t move or speak. I felt him pull in. It was something he had done as a little kid. When pain tore at him most deeply, Ian turned into a Stoic.

  It had always bothered me when we were kids. It was like he wasn’t capable of dealing with his emotions so he turned them off. It was annoying to me since I was so jam packed full of feelings right then. I wanted him to feel the same way I did.

  That thought almost made me groan. It wasn’t fair to expect him to be like me. We were unique, not carbon copies of each other.

  I stood up and walked over to the fire, crouching down in front of it. The heat of the flames was a comfort. I would make sure it did comfort me. I had to.

  Dad let out a loud sigh and rubbed at his brow. “Madison, I need for you to think this through in a rational way,” he said in that same reasonable tone. “I saw the police report. Emma’s body was found in the Gregory’s garage with a chair tipped over under her. The medical examiner confirmed that it was suicide. No one else was around. I understand how hard this is for you. I think you need to accept the facts, though.”

  I turned to face him, my body and mind both screaming out a denial of what he’d said. “I will never accept it because Emma didn’t kill herself. I knew all along how unlike her it was but I ignored that.” I flicked my hand toward him in an impatient gesture. “You want to believe that Manuel hung himself right outside the house we were all at because some girl turned him down, that’s your business. I didn’t know the guy. I did know Emma.”

  “You did,” he agreed as he set his cider down on the table next to him and leaned his elbows on his knees. “I think people make stupid decisions when they’re under stress. Being a college student is stressful. The pressure is too much for far more people than you’re aware of.”

  “CJ wasn’t under stress. He loved being in college,” Ian said quietly. “He’s dead because somebody strung him up. I knew Manuel too. We weren’t friends. We did know each other. I get that it must seem like we’re being hysterical. It’s not true. Emma was there tonight. We both saw her. I don’t believe my sister killed herself anymore. I never should have.”

  Dad looked hard at Ian before he turned his eyes to meet mine. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you. I’m telling you that convincing the police you’ve seen a dead friend and that’s why you believe Manuel and the kid tonight didn’t kill themselves . . . that’s going to be a hard sell.”

  I threw my hands up and groaned. “Why would I tell them that?” I demanded, my temper rising up before it could be reel it in. “I don’t need your help or your permission. I WILL find out the truth. I will not allow anyone else to be hurt.”

  Dad’s eyes flashed in a way that showed his own temper. “You are eighteen years old. It’s time for you to grow up and stop acting like a stubborn little girl. If you believe that murders have taken place, the police are the ones who should look into it. Not you,” he snapped, his voice as cold as ice.

  I curled my lip back in a sneer. “You are right. I should act like an adult. Then again maybe you should have acted like a parent for more than a week in my life. What right do you have to criticize me when you’ve spent your life as far from me as you could get? You may have decided to play the Dad role this week but I’ve had eighteen years where a Dad might have been nice to have around. You giving me orders or even advice is laughable,” I growled, ashamed of those words the moment they escaped my lips. They couldn’t be reneged, though. They were the truth.

  Dad stood up and took a step closer to me, his eyes narrowed in anger. “If you want to accuse me of bad parenting, that’s fine. I’m aware how well-deserved it is. It has nothing to do with the topic, though. I’m trying to tell you to be careful. I have no one in this world other than you and I am not about to stand by and allow you to—”

  “Allow me?” I asked through my teeth, taking a step closer to him as well. “Don’t you get it? This has nothing to do with us and our family drama. It has to do with two guys who are dead in the exact same way as Emma. If you believe us about Emma’s ghost or not, you need to believe that Manuel and CJ did not take their own lives. That is all that matters. Whoever is doing this has to be stopped.”

  Dad blinked, his shoulders slumped in defeat. “Circuit boards and complex equations make perfect sense to me. Present me with a reasonable argument from my daughter and I’m suddenly at a loss,” he said almost to himself.

  I didn’t speak. Slowly, I held out my hand between us. “I’m not a stupid kid, Dad. I plan to figure out what happened and take my information to the police. I have no intention of putting myself in danger.”

  Dad blew out a breath before he wrapped his hand around mine. “Just please keep me in the loop. I’d like to know what you’re up to. I may not be in the running for any father-of-the-year awards but I do care. I always have. I didn’t believe I had the right to go against your mother on the decisions she made in your life. I’m sorry I never stood up for you.”

  I swallowed hard and nodded. I didn’t want to talk about Mom. It hurt too much to think of all the ways she had messed with my life.

  Right then, what mattered was Manuel, CJ, and Emma. They were the most important thing. I would think about my screwed up life later and hopefully, find answers to the plethora of problems I was facing.

  THIRTEEN

  “How well did you know CJ?” I asked in a quiet tone, worried by the still dazed look on Ian’s face.

  We’d been sitting in my dad’s living room for hours, talking about every detail of things we knew about the three victims. It was an odd thing to find such comfort in the recitation of facts and details. It helped to clear my mind and to give me a picture.

  Ian rubbed at his heavy eyes, his elbow rested on the arm of the couch. “We were in a couple of classes together and hung out a few times. We were friends.”

  I sighed in relief as finally, I was able to get into the medical examiner’s files. Whoever had set up the security on their mainframe was very good.

  My stomach began to flutter as I saw that his family had requested that no autopsy be done. CJ’s death had been listed as ‘suspicious’. Why? Why would his family refuse to have an autopsy done?

  Ian leaned around me to look at the screen of my phone and his face went even paler than it was before. He was so colorless, he hardly appeared more alive than Emma and CJ had.

  I turned my phone off, rising to stretch. “Come on, Ian,” I said and guided him down to lay on the couch.

  He didn’t argue. All he did was lay where I’d directed him to, his eyes still open.

  I sat down on the floor in front of him and took his hand. “We’re going to figure this out. I promise you that,” I stated without equivocation.

  He stared at me for a bit before his fingers tightened around mine. “I thought Emma was being a brat. The text she sent me was so obnoxious. If I would have gone to pick her up like she asked—”

  “Ian, stop it. You can’t do that to yourself. We don’t know what happened. All we know is that she’s gone.”

  “Why would somebody do that, though? Why would they kill her and try to make it look like a suicide?”

  I flopped my head forward to rest on the couch. “I don’t know. Psychopathy? An inability to take responsibility for what they’d done? Maybe the kind of arrogance that made them believe it was her fault? We won’t know until we figure out what really happened.”
/>
  He smoothed his hand over the back of my head as his other tightened around mine. “That’s something I never expected to hear you say,” he said, his lips quirked a tiny bit as I raised my head to look at him. “You always had an answer for everything when you were a kid. To hear you say you don’t know is like hearing that you’re a unicorn.”

  I chuckled and gave a negligent shrug. “I AM a unicorn, Ian. I told you enough times when we were little. I’d think you would have learned that by now.”

  “I’ve learned a lot of things about you recently, Maddie.” He closed his eyes as he bit the inside of his cheek. “I’m so sorry your birthday was ruined like that, Mads. You deserved so much better.”

  I leaned forward again, that time to rest my head on his stomach. “It was kind of fabulous at first. I mean, there was this guy who acted like I was important. He made me feel like my birthday meant something to him and he also gave me a cupcake that was mostly frosting. It was fabulous.”

  He smoothed his hand over my hair and pulled my head up to look me in the eye. “I’d bet that guy you’re talking about wants to take you out sometime, see what you make of each other now that you’re both adults.”

  I smirked. “Dylan wants to go out with me? That’s funny. I thought he was hot for Serena.” I did my best not to laugh outright.

  Ian guided me closer to him and touched his lips to my forehead. “Don’t mess with me, Mads. It’s not your birthday anymore so I will retaliate,” he said and pulled his hand free to skim his fingers over the place on my side that was ticklish.

  I squirmed free, a small smile on my lips as I rose. “Get some sleep. I need you alert,” I said, my stomach fluttery as he continued to look at me.

  “Why do I need to be alert? I’m not the brains of this operation. That’s you, Sherlock.”

  And a genuine laugh bubbled out. “Every great investigator needs a trusty sidekick, Dr. Watson,” I said and turned toward the kitchen to see if Dad had any pop.